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Plans had also been made to visit his mother’s barrier island home in Southern Florida. Their lives were intertwining with seamless ease more and more each day.
Sam tugged the pink floral comforter more securely in place as he sat up. “This is supposed to be your celebration, but I sure do like my gift.” He snapped his fingers. “Bear, come.”
A fifty-pound mass of curly black hair, Bear resembled an oversized poodle. He bounded across the room, Muffin trotting at his heels. Both animals leaped onto the bed, turning circles until settling into a nest of covers.
Sam leaned back on the headboard. “Did you notice Bear’s new collar?”
“It’s buried in all that fur. I must have missed it.”
“Check it out.”
Sam really was getting into being a pet owner, something that warmed her heart. But then, Sam had a way of doing that on a regular basis.
She inched closer to the big ol’cutie and furrowed her fingers into his hypo-allergenic fur. A bright red collar peeked through, leather, but rather plain in her opinion. Still she didn’t want to hurt Sam’s feelings. “Very nice, and, uh, manly.”
“Did you check the buckle?”
He seemed so enthused, she hung in there, twisting the collar around and found an odd lump at the buckle. “What’s this?”
She looked closer. Oh, my God. A ring box.
The small black-velvet jeweler’s case had blended into the color of Bear’s fur. Bella’s stomach tap-danced with nerves and excitement and then trepidation because what if this wasn’t what it looked like? What if Sam had bought something else for Muffin as he’d done with the collar at the premiere of Honor?
It must be a new bell for Muffin’s collar, she decided.
Her emotions firmly reined in, Bella untied the gift cradled in her palm, determined to put on a happy face since Sam seemed so jazzed. They hadn’t been dating long, after all, so there was plenty of time for an engagement, something she wanted more than she ever would have imagined possible a couple of months ago.
Sam slid his arm around her. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Yes, of course.” She smiled quickly and brushed a quick kiss over his lips before creaking the lid wide to reveal…
A whomping big princess-cut diamond solitaire in a gold setting.
Bella squealed and threw her arms around Sam’s neck.
He laughed. “I take it that’s a yes.”
“Yes!” She punctuated her affirmation with a kiss, once, twice, repeating “yes” and kisses again and again. The dogs barked together, nudging her and Sam to join in the fun.
Happiness swelled inside her as Bella scooted back and held up the ring box. “Put it on my finger, please.”
“My pleasure.” His gray eyes twinkled as brightly as the jewel. He slid the ring slowly, reverently on her finger until it settled in place, a perfect fit. “I love you, Bella Hudson.”
She smiled. “How convenient since I love you, too, Sam Garrison.” She squeezed her fingers into a fist, making darn sure that ring stayed put. “I want us to do this right. Forever.”
He slid an arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. “Obviously that’s what I want, too, or I wouldn’t be proposing.”
She stared down at her ring, chewing her bottom lip. “Hollywood marriages have notoriously low odds.”
He tipped her chin up. “I’m a whiz when it comes to the odds.”
She believed him, trusted him, had faith in Sam’s determination to make things happen for the best between them. Thanks to him, she also had regained her faith in forever.
Sam reached into the bedside table and pulled out two dog biscuits. He pitched one into a neat landing on Muffin’s bed, followed by the second, which landed on Bear’s bed.
“Well, my future wife, what do you say we finish up this celebration in style?”
Sweet anticipation curled inside her at the thought of all the celebrations ahead of them. “Again, my husband-to-be, I say yes, yes, yes.” She sighed at his bold stroke up her side. “Yes…”
Can Valerie and Devlin make their marriage work? Find out in this exclusive short story by USA TODAY bestselling author Maureen Child.
“You’re leaving?” Devlin looked from the open suitcase on their bed to his wife’s calm, detached expression. “Now?”
Val’s eyes shuttered and her features were remote, deliberately blank. She only glanced at him before turning to walk to the elegant, cherrywood dresser against the far wall.
“Yes, now. There’s really no point in staying any longer, is there?” Her voice was quiet, tinged with sadness, but her movements were sure, steady.
Devlin’s pulse pounded until he heard the echo of his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. He hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t seen it coming. Though, he told himself now, he really should have.
Things hadn’t been good between them from the beginning. Their marriage had gotten off to a bad start with that disastrous wedding night and had never really recovered. He spent most of his time at the studio, avoiding coming home, and Valerie was unhappy living at the family mansion. She’d wanted them to get their own place, but Devlin hadn’t wanted to take the time. With all the postproduction work on Honor, he already had more than enough to contend with.
He hadn’t loved her, but he had wanted her. Now though, sex was uncomfortable, for both of them. Since that first night, he’d never again let his own passions reign free. He’d maintained a strict control over his desires, so much so that making love to his wife was almost a formal event. A chore to be ticked off a to-do list.
She was embarrassed and uneasy, as if she knew he was holding back and so she wouldn’t allow herself to fully engage in what was happening between them, either. They were two strangers who occasionally shared a bed.
Not the marriage he’s envisioned, so it was hardly a shock that she wanted to leave. Though his ego was taking a beating and, damn it, she’d picked a hell of a time to acquire a backbone.
“The movie premiere is tomorrow night,” he reminded her. As if she could have forgotten. It was all anyone in the family had been talking about for weeks.
“I know, and I’m sorry to miss it,” she said, carefully stacking her lingerie into a corner of the suitcase. “I’m sure it’ll be wonderful.”
“Damn it, Val, what am I supposed to tell the family?” She looked up at him and her eyes were filled with pain, regret and shadows of things he couldn’t read or understand. “I don’t care, Dev. Tell them whatever you want to tell them. This isn’t about your family. This is about us. And it’s just not working.”
“And leaving will fix it?” He sounded unreasonable even to himself, but he didn’t care.
Once the media got hold of this, he thought in disgust, the premiere of Honor would be lost in the sensationalism of yet another Hudson marriage disintegrating. Instantly, his mind filled with images of his parents’ long-standing marriage and the indisputable fact of his mother’s treachery. His own mother had cheated on Dev’s father. Why in hell should he be surprised that his own wife was now walking out?
“I’m not trying to fix anything, Dev,” Valerie said, moving now to the walk-in closet. “I don’t think there’s anything to fix.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He shoved both hands into the pockets of his slacks and glanced with irritation around the bedroom.
After his marriage, Devlin had moved Valerie into his rooms at the Hudson family mansion. The entire right wing was theirs, and with several bedrooms and sitting rooms, there was enough privacy afforded them that they might as well have been in their own home. Which, he conceded had been a bone of contention between them from the start.
But it was convenient and easy to get to work and why the hell would he want to move?
Now, he stared at the interior of his own bedroom as if it were a strange new place. Until that moment, he hadn’t even noticed that Valerie—at least he assumed it had been she—had brought in Christmas decorations, hanging tiny white light around the framed paintings, red candles set in holly wreaths positioned on top of the dressers and tables and there was a cinnamony scent in the air, too. How had he not been aware of that before?
His wife stepped out of the closet with several items of clothing draped over one arm. She paused briefly, looked at him and gave him a sad smile. “Devlin, I thought you’d be happy I was leaving. You never wanted a marriage.”
“Excuse me?” Fresh irritation erupted inside him. “I am the one who proposed. The one who swept you off to Vegas. The one who moved you in here—into my bed.”
“Exactly,” she said, shaking her head now as she walked to the bed and the open suitcase. While she packed, she told him, “We moved here. Into your place. Not ours. Into your bed. Not ours. You wanted a wife who would be some sort of decoration, I guess.” She lifted one shoulder into a half-hearted shrug. “You expected me to slide into your life and not create a ripple, and I tried. Really.”
“Yeah, you gave it a real try. A couple months and then you split on Christmas Eve. Do you want applause?”
Valerie sighed, closed the suitcase, zipped it shut, then pulled it off the bed to stand beside her. This was so much harder than she thought it would be. She didn’t want to leave him, but staying was destroying her by inches.
